By Alex Paul
Western Herald
Wednesday night’s lecture “Why People are Gay?… and Why It Matters” was rather, to quote speaker Marvin Overby “Why Americans Believe Some People are Gay… and Why It Matters.”
For 15 years Overby, a professor at the University of Missouri, received a call from friend Jay Barth have conducted surveys on the size of the gay population in the U.S., a number that he estimates to be around 20 to 25 percent.
Currently their projects involve two important and related issues: to uncover the attitudes regarding the etiology of homosexuality and to uncover the attitudes regarding adoption by gays and lesbians.
But the question remained – “Why are some people gay?”
“I don’t know the answer to this question,” Overby said. Although he did pose a number of theories based on research. Most believe being homosexual is either a choice of nature or a choice of will, biological or lifestyle, innate or learned. The previous perspective for the Conservative party was that not only were gays and lesbians chosen by nature but they were also biologically inferior.
Over time there has been an increasing amount of evidence that homosexuality has a biological basis, Overby said; such as hair whorls that are counter-clockwise, left handedness, right hand digit ratios (the ring fingers being longer than the index fingers), and altered hypothalamus structure (also meaning altered pheromones).
“I’m not making this up,” Overby said. There have been studies on identical twins showing that they often share the same sexual orientation but the chances are a lot lower if they are fraternal twins. There is no definitive “gay gene” even though human beings have shown definite signs of having a “gaydar.”
Unfortunately, Overby said that there’s limited research on public opinion but even with the limits it is believed that 41 percent of the population believe homosexuality to have a biological basis—numbers that go far past the 13 percent that believed the same thing in 1977.
From 2007 until 2008 there has been a Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project, internet-based with 20,000 registered voters (although Overby only used 1,834 of them in his presentation) asking questions regarding the etiology of homosexuality, attitudes toward gay adoption, and attitudes toward gay civil unions and presidential vote choice. There are a wide range of control variables: demographic and social, political, and even personality. There may be problems with Internet surveys since they limit the number of Americans voting, but the digital divide is closing rapidly–20 percent of Americans have no land lines, instead having cell phones only and 75 percent of Americans have Internet use at home.
Attitudes toward homosexuality as biological are certainly evolving, presently 52 percent of Americans agree or strongly agree that it is biological and not a lifestyle choice. According to Overby those more likely to see homosexuality as driven by biology are whites, women, wealthier, non-born agains, less religious, older, never married, those with gay contacts, liberals, and those more politically interested.
Attitudes toward same-sex adoption are also evolving, 39 percent of Americans are consistent, 47 percent are supportive of gay adoption, and 14 percent are supportive of gay civil unions, Overby said. Those that tend to support gay adoption are whites, non-born agains, younger, those with gay contacts, Democrats, liberals, and those who see homosexuality as biologically determined. Religious views are the only attitudes directly affecting civil union—not adoption.
Overby’s lecture was sponsored by Western’s Institute for Government and Politics and the Martin Luther King Junior Celebration Committee.
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